To my Dear Friend, Mr Bilbo Baggins
by The 41st Maguanac
Summary: A 'What if?' story concerning what happened when Gandalf left the party in The Hobbit. What if Bilbo had written to Gandalf and asked to be told of what had happened with the Necromancer?


Disclaimer: The characters and concepts of 'The Lord of the Rings' were created by JRR Tolkien and are not mine, sadly. If they were then I'd be a zillionaire by now.

Author's Note: I wrote this piece for my A Level coursework, so any constructive criticism would be really useful. We had to do a 'text transformation' piece, meaning that I had to take a base text, in this case 'The Hobbit' and look at it from a different perspective. Here's what I came up with.

R/R please.

41.

Misty Mountains

To my dear friend, Mr Bilbo Baggins,

I will begin my letter by offering no apology whatsoever for it's lateness. I am, after all, a wizard of the High Order, and I always arrive exactly when I mean to. That goes for my letters also. What's more, business of late has given me little time to sit down with quill and parchment. Have you ever tried writing a letter while riding a horse? It is a good thing I did not have to write in Elvish, as the words completely lose any meaning with a misplaced inkblot or two. As it is, you shall have to make do with what is here, inkblots and all.

If you are reading this letter then it is proof in itself that your quest has not fallen into ill times. If all is going as planned, you should have not long ago reached the Desolation of Smaug. An impressive creature is he not? It is difficult from afar for me to offer you many words of aid. He is, after all, a dragon of extraordinary size and strength, with fiery breath that could turn the havens of the elves into nothing more than smouldering timbers. However, when I last left you at the brink of Mirkwood I sensed that you would possess both the courage and intelligence needed to aid that rabble of Dwarves to the mountain, and so you have. A good show from a Hobbit that only a few moons ago was sitting in his Hobbit hole making tea. You have come a long way in mind, body and spirit, and that is nothing to be sniffed at. The Took inside you is doing you proud.

Now to the main point of this letter. I was thankful to receive your hastily scribbled notes sent to me from Lake Town. In the belief that you would probably have already left Lake Town my reply arrived, I have sent it with one of Radagast the Brown's many animal creatures. You should, if your luck holds, receive it on the side of the Lonely Mountain. Please give it's eagle carrier something from your rations, even if they are tight. He has flown many miles and avoided the perils of the Goblin arrows to bring you this message.

I was quite intrigued to discover you had begun work on a book. The first few pages you have sent me are quite promising, particularly your description of my – somewhat unwanted I note – appearance at Bag End, and the antics of the Dwarves. I hope this letter finds them all in good health also, and that Bombur has not eaten all of your provisions. He is a kindly fellow, but rather too partial to rice cakes and ale. I would have been almost amused by your description of the events that occurred in Mirkwood, had they not been so serious. The greed of the Dwarves will ever be their greatest foe, and I wish I had mentioned to you my ties with the woodland Elves before I left you. Thranduil and myself are friends of old from the time Sauron ruled the Darklands, and he owes me a debt of gratitude from the Great War. If you had approached the Elven banquet and mentioned my name, I have no doubt the Elves would have greeted you with open arms and provisions.

I would by no means wish to impede your progress in writing your book, so I have done my best to compile an account of what we have so far achieved. I did not wish to inform you of the details of my journey at first for fear you would not wish me to undertake such a great task. Saruman the White, the leader of the Istari, was against the idea at first, but with some assistance from Radagast the Brown, we have succeeded in greatly weakening our enemy.

Here is, to the best of my knowledge, an account of the events since my return to the Misty Mountains.

My first port of call was to send a message by eagle to Saruman the White at Isengard, bidding him to make haste to join Radagast and I at the Misty Mountains. Without his power and knowledge, the quest to bring down the power of the Necromancer could not have been successful. We waited some time for his arrival, but fortunately he travelled with all available speed and arrived on the dawn of the seventh day. His journey had been strangely unimpeded by Goblins and Orcs for reasons that shall become clear shortly. 

We travelled for another 5 days straight before our arrival at the Necromancer's abode, a dark and forbidding spectacle hidden away in one of the many nooks and crannies of the mountain range. It was predominantly grey, more a tower than a castle indeed. We had learnt of its secrets passages and chambers from the many eyes and ears of Radagast, whose animal informants seem to be almost everywhere.

In fact, it was one such creature, a raven, which first informed us of upcoming dangers. It was an old bird, with dirty feathers, missing a talon from one of its feet, but its eyes were keen. He brought us news that our arrival at the dark abode of the Necromancer had not gone unnoticed. A small army of Orcs was already on its way.

Though Radagast was much afeared, we did not wish to return into the Misty Mountains without our task completed. With staff in one hand, the great Elvish sword Glamdring in the other, and my strong and faithful steed Shadowfax beneath me, we charged into the flock of them, felling many with a sweep of blade or a flash of lightning, which shook the very rocks on which we stood.

The Orcs didn't know what to make of this attack. Clearly they had not been expecting us to attack, so we had the element of surprise. Many of them fled from our angry shouts, leaving their injured brothers to bleed darkly into the barren ground. When the battlefield had cleared, one would have imagined a great army had attacked, and we felt strengthened by this lack of opposition. The Necromancer, we believed and hoped, was not as powerful as we had imagined.

It would have been foolish to continue our attack at the front gates. Orc and Goblin guards would have swarmed us in a moment, so we had to find alternate means of entering the castle. Once again the skill of Radagast was to lend a hand to our work, and one of his insect friends found a place in the wall where the stonework was uneven and discoloured. Sure enough we had found a secret entrance, almost covered completely from disuse with ancient lichen, and sealed with some dark incantations that it took all three of us to decipher and remove. Saruman was wonderfully proficient in his knowledge of these things, and took only a fraction of the time it would have taken myself and Radagast to achieve the same thing.

The passages inside the castle were as long and as twisting as we had feared they would be. We were met at every step of our journey by resistance. Many of the tunnels had been built by Goblins, smelt appalling, and wound on for miles into the side of the mountain. I tell you young Bilbo; I would have given my hat for the use of your ring in avoiding the prying eyes of the Goblins, which were always on our tails.

However, our efforts did not go to waste. We lost all track of time in the dark tunnels, with only the light of our staffs to see by. We did not dare light the tunnels with a spell, as we would immediately draw attention to ourselves. Finally, the tunnel arrived at a pair of huge oaken doors, which must have been pulled many miles underground. They were crafted badly, not in the manner and style that you see Elvish weaponry, but by many Orc hands. However, they were still high and foreboding, and all of three of us felt the chill of fear pass through us as we pushed our way into the huge chamber beyond. We had reached the inner sanctum of the Necromancer.

The most amazing part of this story is not the events that led up to the battle, nor even the battle itself. It was the Necromancer that filled us all with fear. He was not so much a person as he was a shadow, sitting in a great guilt throne that must have been stolen, for the craft was too intricate for Goblin fingers. "Leave this place!" I heard the words coming from my own mouth, "Leave or allow folks to pass freely through this land!" A darkness swept through me, the likes of which I have not known for centuries. A profound and unearthly shadow was washing over us all. He was speaking to us, not in the language of the Elves nor of man, but in the dark tongue of Mordor.

I had hoped and prayed that I would never have to hear such a thing again in my lifetime at the finish of the Great War, but it assured me that there would be no end to this battle until we had driven this creature from this den of darkness. Radagast acted without thought, charging forward with his staff and sword, swinging the great weapon towards the force that stood before us. His sword broke asunder, shattering as though made of nothing more than glass.

I sheathed Glamdring in an instant, fearing the same fate of my weapon if I were to attack as Radagast had. I turned my attention to my staff and ancient words I could remember from equally ancient books, the likes of which they only keep in Minas Tirith in the land of Gondor. "Back foul being of shadows!" I was shouting as I planted my feet apart, my staff clasped so tightly that my knuckles were turning white. There was an astounding crack as Saruman too planted his staff in the ground, and I knew in an instant that we would have to work together to end the torment of the Necromancer.

I shall not write here any of the incantations that were spoken by myself, nor Saruman, for I fear the force of them would be enough to make the hair on your feet fall out, my Hobbit friend. The battle raged for some while until I feared I would fall unconscious from the strain of holding my soul within my body. Then the power of the Necromancer wavered and we seized the opportunity with joy. A whirlwind of magic and lightning like one of my most fantastic firework displays filled the room, and then there was nothing.

The Necromancer had gone.

And so my story has finally come to an end. There is little more to add here of which you are not already aware. Though I would wish to believe it, I fear that the Necromancer is not destroyed, and lives on, awaiting a time when he may rise again. Also, his words in the dark language of Mordor have brought about a fear in me that chills me right to my bones. I shall not burden you with my thoughts on this subject, but instead tell you that I am on my way to the desolation of Smaug as I write.

The mountains are strangely silent now, and I fear that a battle the likes of which no living Hobbit will remember is approaching you. You must use your intelligence and wits if you are to survive, and probably your magic ring as well.

One final word about the ring itself. Keep it near you always, but as I have said in the past, refrain from wearing it except in the most dire of circumstances. There may be much more to that ring than first meets the eye.

I remain, as ever, your dear friend,

                        Gandalf.


End file.
